Give Thanks for Hamburgers

It was my turn to host Thanksgiving dinner. On November first, I brought home the biggest turkey I could find; I had to clean out my freezer to make it fit.

Two weeks later, I was sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by cookbooks, making a list of dishes to cook for dinner, when the snap-pop of a soda can being opened caught my attention. My roommate, Martha, threw herself into a chair next to me. She drained half of the can in one gulp before asking, “Whatcha doing Susie?”

“Ugh, I hate it when you drink soda straight from the can. We have perfectly nice tumblers you can pour it into.” I love Martha, but some of her personal habits drive me insane. I knew that tomorrow I would find that empty soda can somewhere it did not belong.

Martha rolled her eyes, “Whatever Soozie-Q. Why are you looking at cookbooks? You burn frozen pizza.”

She abruptly grabbed the notepad I had been scribbling on, “A soufflé? Don’t you think you’re going a little overboard on this whole Thanksgiving thing?”

“What? I can make a soufflé! How hard can it be?” I said, grabbing my notepad back and continuing to make my list.

I did my best to ignore the slurping sounds Martha made while drinking her soda. I had never met anyone who could drink a can of soda faster than she could. After sucking the last few drops out of the can, she let out the loudest burp I had ever heard. She set the can down on the white tiled floor. The chair legs made a scraping sound as Martha stood up. There was a loud stomp and the crinkle of aluminum being crushed.

“Huzzah! Take that, you stupid can.” Martha tossed the now flattened can onto the counter and walked up the stairs to her room, “Okay, I’ll stop teasing you about Thanksgiving. I think it will end in tears, but until then, I’ll totally be supportive.” Gee, thanks, I thought. I could feel the love, but I grew even more determined to make this the best Thanksgiving ever.

The day before Thanksgiving, I arrived home from work about ten in the evening. I figured that I had just enough time to make a pumpkin pie before turning in for the night. Thirty minutes later, I put the pie in the oven to bake. I pulled the sticker off the front of the large pot that I bought to deep fry the turkey in and gave it a thorough washing. I did not want to wrestle three gallons of oil first thing in the morning – while still half-asleep. So I opened the bottles of oil and poured them into the pot.

Just as I checked on the turkey defrosting in the refrigerator, my timer for the oven went off. My pie was done baking. I could not get rid of the large grin on my face as I pulled the beautiful pie out of the oven. My first-ever homemade pumpkin pie was golden brown, with a delicate pie crust, and no cracks in the top of the pie. I snapped a quick picture of the pie with my phone for Instagram. A pie this beautiful deserved to be shared with the world. I looked at the clock and sighed. It was eleven thirty, and I had to be up early in the morning. I placed the pie on a cake stand next to the frying pot and headed upstairs for bed.

My alarm went off at five o’clock, I had a lot to get done before dinner was scheduled to start. I rushed downstairs to the kitchen. My right foot slipped on the kitchen tiles and I fell flat on my butt. It took me a few seconds to figure out how I ended up on the floor and why exactly my kitchen looked like an oily Slip ‘n Slide.

My frying pot had been knocked off the counter, spilling gallons of peanut oil everywhere. What was left of my pumpkin pie was lying in the middle of the mess. I forgot that Martha’s Saint Bernard, Rufus, loved pumpkin pie and was large enough to reach stuff left on the counter. Apparently in his excitement over his treat, he pushed the heavy pot of oil onto the floor.

I picked myself up and carefully made my way across the room to the cabinet we stored the cleaning supplies. I grabbed a roll of paper towels and started to soak up as much of the puddle of oil as I could. Thirty minutes and five rolls of paper towels later, I had most of the oil off the floor. I need to make a note to buy more paper towels.

I turned the hot tap on the faucet up as high as it would go and rummaged under the sink for the mop bucket. I figured that a couple squirts of dish soap in really hot water should allow me to get the oily residue up off the tile. I was not looking forward to walking to the laundry room to get the mop, because that meant leaving oily footprints everywhere. I watched the steam rise off the bucket of hot soapy water while I contemplated my options. Martha was still asleep, so I could not ask her to get the mop for me, which left me no choice but to spread the oily mess further.

The mop was not in the laundry room. There was a note in Martha’s handwriting attached to the nail we hung the mop on, “Rufus ate the mop, I’ll buy another one payday”. Her payday was three weeks ago. Martha clearly forgot she owed us a new mop. I made a mental note to add that to the list along with more paper towels.

I spotted a pile of large bath towels sitting on top of our dryer. Wet towels are heavy and would be harder to use than a mop, but at this point I was ready to do anything. I grabbed the pile and carried them back into the kitchen.

The towels were as awkward to use as I thought they would be, but they did mop up the residue left on the tile floor. I vowed to write a letter to the makers of Dawn dish soap to thank them for its amazing grease cutting properties.

I remembered seeing a warning sticker on our dryer saying not to dry anything that had oil on it because no washer was capable of getting all the oil out. I was not sure if that meant cooking oil, but I wasn’t going to take a chance with starting a fire, so I threw the oil-soaked towels into the trash can on top of the oil-soaked paper towels.

Now the kitchen was clean again, but I had no pumpkin pie for dessert, and no oil to fry the turkey in. The cabinet by the stove contained a bunch of cake pans, cookie sheets, frying pans, large pots, and all manner of plastic storage containers. Several pans clattered onto the floor when I opened the cabinet door. I made a mental note to organize this cabinet later. I started digging through the mess to see if we had a pan large enough to roast a turkey in. I found a pan that might work, though it would be a tight fit for the turkey.

Martha and I had lived here three years and I could not remember ever using this pan. It was filthy. I gave it a good scrubbing in the sink and dried it off before getting the turkey out the refrigerator. I wasn’t sure what temperature to set the oven to I decided that 350F was good, and turned it on to preheat. While waiting for the oven to heat up, I made a cup of coffee - laced with a little bit of whiskey. I don’t usually drink at six in the morning. However, with the morning I’d had, a little bit of alcohol would help relax me. The oven beeped to let me know it was fully heated up just as I was rinsing my “Nurses call the shots” coffee mug my mom bought me. Mom, bless her heart, didn’t understand that there was an “in bed” implicit in that statement, but I always got a hearty chuckle out of it.

I picked up the turkey-filled pan and started to carry it across the kitchen to the oven. I was about halfway there when my foot connected with something soft and squishy. I recoiled to avoid putting all my weight on what I assumed was my cat, Hugo. He must have stretched out on the floor behind me while I was wrestling the turkey into the pan. Because of the pan I was carrying I could not see him, but I could hear his yowl of indignation. He hissed and swatted at my foot, then scrabbled across the still damp floor into the safety of the living room. I put my foot down on a patch of oil that I’d missed, and, for the second time that morning, I ended up sitting on the floor. The turkey went flying through the air and landed with a splat on my left. The pan clattered as it hit the floor right in front of me.

First my pie was ruined, and now no turkey. I was still determined to succeed, despite the shaky start to the day. I cringed as I picked the turkey up off the floor and tossed it into the garbage can. I washed my hands and cleaned up the poultry juices from the floor.

The side dishes would just have to do for dinner. First on my list was a Smoked Trout Soufflé in a Phyllo Crust. I had no idea what a Phyllo crust was, so I had just bought a package of frozen pie crust.

The crust had to chill in the refrigerator for three hours after being assembled and placed into a tart pan with a removable bottom. I did not have a tart pan, so I used a round cake pan instead. Surely the size of the pan is more important than a removable bottom.

While the crust chilled in the refrigerator, I worked on the soufflé filling. The soufflé directions said to make a roux first. Apparently, a roux is a fancy word for the flour and butter base that you use to make gravy. The roux cooked up nicely and the saucepan with the roux was sitting on a back burner to cool. Since I could not proceed with this recipe until closer to dinner time, I started making the next recipe on my list: Candied Mandarin Oranges with Cranberries.

The instructions for this recipe looked simple enough: peel the oranges, boil sugar and water together, add elderflower liqueur and oranges, then let the mixture soak overnight. Oh. Crap. I did not have overnight; I had about five hours until dinner. I decided that surely it will not hurt to cut the soaking time down.

Twenty minutes later, I had a pan of oranges soaking up the elderflower sauce and I had moved on to the Roasted Corn with Manchego and Lime. There were no nasty surprises with this recipe, and the dish looked beautiful in my grandmother’s white oval china bowl. I sat the bowl in one of my upper kitchen cabinets and shut the door. Given how this morning had gone so far, I wanted to make sure to keep at least this side dish safe.

Martha dragged herself into the kitchen to have some coffee. “How’s the cooking going? I see the place hasn’t caught on fire yet,” she said.

I thought about all the things that had gone wrong this morning. I did not want to admit that I was having problems and had no desire to hear “I told you so”, yet if I said everything was fine, she’d realize I was lying. I am a terrible liar. One time in grade school I tried the old “my dog ate my homework lie” and ended up with a word salad - my grandfather’s house had been abducted by dogs and my homework was eaten by aliens.

“Things could be better. But, I’ll still have dinner ready by two,” I said.

Martha threw her coffee grounds into the garbage bin and laughed at the pile of towels topped by a shiny, raw turkey. “Could be better? It doesn’t really look like things could be worse.”

I huffed and went over to the dining area to set the table. I still had a couple hours to go before I could continue cooking, and I planned on using that time to take a shower and grab a quick bite to eat.

Maybe more Irish coffee would be a good idea too.

The next step for my soufflé was to blend the roux and fish together in a food processor. I placed all the ingredients into the food processor bowl and turned it on. Bangs and sparks emitted from the base of the food processor. I yanked the power cord out of the socket and stared at the smoking appliance in disbelief. Was I cursed?

With a sigh, I poured the unprocessed mixture into a mixing bowl. I dug around in the utensil drawer looking for our potato masher. It would not be as smooth as the food processor, but it was the only thing I could think of to use. I did not want to throw it away and admit defeat, again. I mashed the fish as best as I could by hand and hoped it would still work.

Before beating the egg whites in my stand mixer, I sent up a prayer asking for a little bit of a miracle. Mostly, I was just hoping that the mixer did not fly apart. The recipe said it should take about three to five minutes for the egg whites to come to a soft peak. While the mixer was whipping the eggs, I put the crust in the oven and set the timer.

My once-clean kitchen was a mess. I had a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, an almost overflowing garbage bin, orange peels in a pile on the counter, drawers and cabinet doors standing open, and the doorbell was ringing constantly. Was it time for my friends to arrive already? I let Martha deal with the guests while I started tidying up the kitchen. I put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, replaced the garbage bag, and closed the doors and drawers.

When I finally remembered my egg whites, they had been over-beaten and had turned into liquid again. I started over with new egg whites, this time setting a timer for three minutes so this would not happen again. My oven timer beeped to let me know that my soufflé crust was baked. Smoke poured out of the oven when I pulled the door open. My crust was not golden brown and fluffy; it was black and smoking.

I checked the recipe to see what I had done wrong. The crust was only supposed to bake for fifteen minutes. I threw out the crust, the lumpy fish mixture, and the beautifully beaten egg whites. The number of dishes that we would not be eating had risen again: from two to three.

Roasted corn and candied oranges were not going to be enough food for eight people. I walked over to the pantry to see what else I could cook, stuff that even I could not ruin, when I heard an explosion from the garbage bag sitting next to the bin. The bag was on fire!

I started screaming at the top of my lungs and then burst into tears. We did not have a fire extinguisher in the house. Martha ran in to the kitchen, saw the fire, called 911 on her cell phone, and dragged me out of the kitchen. One of my friends grabbed my cat and ran outside., Martha’s boyfriend, John, made sure Rufus was still in the back yard, as everyone else ran outside.

Sirens wailed and lights flashed as a fire engine raced down the street to our house. Within minutes, the firefighters had put out the blaze; the only damage was in the kitchen. The firefighters explained to us that vegetable oils produce heat as they dry. That heat caused the towels to spontaneously combust. We were told that next time we need to dispose of oil-soaked towels, we should either lay them flat to dry or put them in an airtight container. Even a tied off garbage bag allows air to mix with the heat coming off the oil.

The kitchen was still usable, but Martha decided it was time to put me out of my misery and look for an open restaurant. We ended up having burgers and fries at a little mom and pop hamburger joint. Despite the culinary disasters, thanks to a good sense of humor and even better friends, it turned out to be my best Thanksgiving ever.